


It’s a Small Mistake Again

by papayaromantic



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Save These Children, families who stitch up their brother stay together, graphic description of gore, he only breaks a glass bowl but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 08:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papayaromantic/pseuds/papayaromantic
Summary: You aren’t allowed to make mistakes in the Hargreeves Mansion, and Klaus knows this better than anyone. This is why he also knows he'd take injuries over the mere concept of letting Dad find out that he'd messed up.





	It’s a Small Mistake Again

There’s a set of bloody footprints leading out of the kitchen.

Allison is the first to find them. She had been aching for the cookie dough in the fridge all week and absolutely nothing could distract her from her mission. Hargreeves finally went on his business trip, which meant that she had free reign over whatever she wanted to eat so long as Pogo never saw. This stood true until her socks got slightly wet on the linoleum. She looked down and coughed back a scream.

Blue cloth quickly turned black once mixed with the blood. As fast as possible, she jumped out of the way of the trail and ripped the footwear off, throwing them across the room as if it would take all of the offending substance away. It didn’t, needless to say.

Her hands reach for her throat and she holds it tight, almost choking. She would call for somebody, tell them that someone is hurt, but there’s blood everywhere which means  _ her voice her voice is gone her vocal cords cut the bow’s right there and Vanya is crying where is Vanya is she okay she hates Leonard she hates him _ —

“Allison?” Allison keeps one hand on her neck and uses the other to pull Vanya into a vicious hug. Vanya hugs back immediately, pulling her face away to look at her sister. “Allison, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

For fear of opening her mouth and blood bubbling out instead of words, she points to the ground. The smaller sister inspects the floor with a gasp and makes Allison sit down on a chair nearby.

“Oh my god, what happened? Do I need to call Mom? Is it really bad? You have to let me see—,” Allison shakes her head vehemently and points out the door. The footsteps are leading away. “It wasn’t you?” Vanya looks relieved before concern takes its place again in the frown lines of her fifteen year-old face. She likes remembering that they’ll be adults again, that Vanya will look like Vanya again when they move out of the house for the second and last time. “Who was it?” At her shrug, Vanya takes her hand and leads her out of the kitchen. “Let’s get you out of here and then I’ll go look, okay?”

Allison is hit with a pang of regret, oh so familiar to her, that she had gone an entire lifetime without appreciating her sister.

“Where are you two headed?” Diego slides in beside them, fingers twirling a knife.  _ Probably bored _ , Allison surmises, taking in his terse but light posture.

“Allison found blood in the kitchen. I’m taking her to her room and then I’m going to make sure whoever got hurt went to Mom.”

Diego looks like he wants to question it, but then sees Allison’s hands and goes quiet. “I-uh-I can help.” He gestures behind them. “I’ll go check out the crime scene. I  _ almost  _ graduated the Police Academy, you know.”

Allison laughs quietly and Vanya shoots him a thankful look before they disappear up the stairs.

The macabre trail ends once it hits the shoe rack in the living room, so Diego can only trace it that far. He follows it morbidly back to the kitchen and right to the source. On the ground lies one of Mom’s nice glass bowls, glimmering in shards underneath a bath of dark, syrupy blood. There’s a big chunk laying on the counter and the cupboard door is open. Diego winces.

“What do you think happened?” Vanya looks at the floor from behind her brother’s shoulder and covers her mouth with her hands.

“Our mystery man tried to grab a bowl from the top shelf and it fell.” He swallows, throat dry. “It’s… uhm, it’s a lot of blood, Vanya.”

Vanya takes one last look and then turns out the door. “We need to get Luther.”

“Don’t you think Luther is going to get mad at whoever it was for not ‘trusting the team’ or whatever other bullshit he tends to pull?”

His sister wraps her arms around herself. “I know.” She lifts her head up and looks back at the trail, eyes steely. “But Luther can carry them to Mom.”

It’s a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless.

Diego follows Vanya up the stairs and through the house. Luther’s door is ajar and soft music is drifting out. Number One was never really as emotionally open like the rest of them, but his records were enough to remind the siblings that he was human and had actual interests. Today is an alternative day, they suppose. Diego knocks on the door before entering.

Luther looks up from his math workbook. “Vanya? Diego? What do you need?”

“There’s blood on the floor in the kitchen.” Diego supplies in clipped wording, just like they were taught to do on missions. “We don’t know whose it is yet, but when we find them, we’ll need you to carry them to Mom.”

“Why wouldn’t they be with Mom already?”

“We’re Hargreeves, Luther. When have any of us gone to medical on our own?” Vanya scuffs her feet on the carpet, looking uncomfortable to be standing up to Luther. Diego moves closer so that their shoulders are touching.

Luther sighs and packs up his materials into the pencil case Dad gave them all for their birthdays when they were four.

“Allison’s not the culprit. She found the blood in the first place.” Diego decidedly does not mention that she also flipped out, because then Luther would go back to glaring at Vanya and probably be no help at all. “And we know it’s not you, me, or Vanya.”

“So we need to check on Five, Klaus, and Ben.”

“What are we checking on me for?” Five asks from the doorway, blue light from his blink still fading. Diego rolls his eyes.  _ Showoff _ .

“Couldn’t you have been here like what, two seconds sooner? We literally just explained this to Luther.”

“Don’t be rude, Diego!” Vanya bats at him. “There’s blood all over the kitchen. It’s really bad. We think someone dropped a bowl and it broke and they stepped in all the glass. We’re trying to figure out who it was so we can make sure they’re okay.” Five clicks his tongue. “Apparently it wasn’t you.”

“I wouldn’t be stupid enough, no.”

Vanya makes a face before sidestepping by Five back into the hallway. “It’s just an accident. That’s not dumb.” She passes Allison’s room, but pauses for a moment by the door. It’s shut and she hears a page flipping from inside. Vanya smiles slightly and continues on past Diego’s room.

Five blinks beside her. “I wouldn’t be dumb enough to make a mistake because we  _ can’t _ . We live with Hargreeves; no mistake goes unpunished, accident or not.” Vanya flinches and stops in her tracks, right before Klaus’s room. “We’re lucky the old man is out, seriously.” The girl tries to think of something to say, some defense to give, but she doesn’t have one.

“Can you… can you clean it up?” It’s all she can ask.

Five scoffs and blinks away.

She hopes that’s a yes.

Klaus doesn’t reply when she knocks, but really, she couldn’t tell even if he did. Klaus’s room had been soundproofed for as long as she could remember. The screaming at night was gut-wrenching, so Dad had his walls thickened so the rest of the kids could sleep at night. She had never really considered how awful it was.

The room is empty. Klaus’s sheets are as strewn as they were this morning when Mom got them up for breakfast.

“He must be with Ben.” guesses Diego, who has since caught up with her.

“Two birds one stone, right?” Vanya gives a half-smile and heads over to Ben’s room, instead. Ben calls them in.

He’s on his bed, sitting cross-legged with a book open and face-down beside him. His hands are otherwise occupied with two cootie-catchers, both covered in messy handwriting. Klaus is on the floor with his legs spread out, shoes thudding a steady rhythm on the floor. A pile of papers rests in his lap. It’s evident when his sleeves ride up that he’s drawn all over his skin where Dad wouldn’t be able to see. The marker is a few inches from him, cap still open.

“Klaus is trying to teach me how to work two fortune tellers at the same time. He says it’s a lost art.” Ben shrugs, but looks endlessly amused.

“It’s one sexy feedback loop!” Klaus flips his head upside-down to look at his siblings behind him. “You do one of ‘em, and it says blue! Bam! Next catcher, put in blue! That one says red! Bam! Put in red! It just keeps going.”

Vanya breathes a laugh and Luther purses his lips. “There’s a serious matter at hand.”

“We’re being very serious.”

“This has been going on for an hour; I think we can stop for a minute.” Ben sets the catchers on his bedside table. “What’s up?”

“We found, like, a gallon of blood in the kitchen.” Ben bites his lip in concern and Klaus turns away. “No idea who it’s from, so we’re trying to find ‘em.” Diego leans against the doorframe. “Either of you the perp?”

Ben shakes his head. “No, but that totally sucks.”

“No dice!” Klaus picks up the marker and lifts up his sleeve to continue his drawing of a squid. “Maybe it was Five?”

“We checked with Five and Allison.”

“Pogo, then?”

Before Luther can even suggest that they go check on the monkey, Vanya moves to crouch next to Klaus. “Klaus,” she asks, brows furrowed, “why are you wearing shoes?”

Klaus makes a non-committal noise and pulls his feet beside himself so he’s sitting side-saddle. “Just warmin’ my tootsies! It can get frigid in the winter, you know, and Daddy hasn’t believed in heating since day one.”

Ben frowns. “You’ve been homeless in the middle of a snowstorm and you wouldn’t even take the boots the bouncer at the club offered you.”

“Wrong size.” The medium pushes himself away slightly towards the wall.

“Klaus,” warns Diego, “take the shoes off.”

“I’m not funding your fetish! Gross, Diego.”

Luther grumbles and launches forward into the room. He grabs the soles and yanks, pulling them off without any resistance. A puddle of blood drips to the floor out of them, almost like the shoe’s been soaking in maroon water. Klaus whimpers and shoves himself back into a corner, creating a small trail of the stuff from his feet. He keeps them firmly on the floor, wincing from the pressure. Luther drops the Oxfords and stumbles back.

“Oh, Klaus.” whispers Vanya.

“Just… just a scratch!” Klaus clears his throat, trying to get back on track. “It looks way worse than it is! You know how feet can be. You stand up too long and all the blood goes there ‘cause of gravity. It’s science!”

Ben growls. “You’ve been here for  _ hours _ and you didn’t say anything? You just acted like everything was fine! I thought we were closer than that! I thought you trusted me!”

“Duh, of course I do! This just wasn’t important.”

“Klaus, dude, you’re losing a lot of blood. You could die, man.”

“It was important.” Ben looks at Diego and back to Klaus. “It  _ is  _ important.”

Klaus shuffles his feet closer to himself, the shards of glass making screeching noises across the hardwood. “Can we just go back to playing with the cootie catchers? That was fun, right? I can make another one and I’ll even make sure that three of the four flaps say that you’re gonna marry that one hot guy you like from Doctor Who.” he tries to plead with Ben.

Luther sighs and begins to walk out of the room. “I’m going to go get Mom.”

Klaus rockets to his feet and grabs Luther’s sleeve. Vanya makes a horrified noise. He digs his heels into the floor, trying to pull the strong boy back. “Don’t tell Mom!” His fists clench tighter. “Don’t tell Pogo, don’t tell anyone.  _ Please _ .”

“Oh god, we won’t! We won’t! Sit down!” Vanya grabs Klaus’s waist and attempts to pull him down beside her. “Stop it!”

“But… we  _ have _ to tell someone—,”

“Luther, for the love of all that is good in this world, you are going to shut your goddamn mouth.” Vanya manages to yank Klaus down to the floor. “We can’t fix him up if he’s panicking.”

“You’re not going to say anything?” Klaus looks up at her. Vanya bites her lip sadly.

“Not a word.”

Klaus breathes the stress out of himself and relaxes his back onto the wood. He covers his eyes with his hands and digs the palms in, trying to mask the pain from his lower body. God, it hurts so bad.

“Let’s take him to my bathroom.” decides Ben. “We need to dress those or he’s going to pass out. Plus, the glass isn’t supposed to be in there.”

“No shit.”

“Klaus, are you okay for Luther to pick you up? We’re just going to take you to the bathroom so we can bandage those.” Klaus nods weakly at Vanya’s suggestion.

Luther quickly situates himself so that his hands are in the proper places before he hefts the boy up. “You’re really light.” he says in lieu of saying anything else. He carries him bridal style all the way to the tiled area and dumps him in the bathtub.

“You sure know how to flatter a lady.” Klaus uncovers his eyes and shifts to get comfortable. “Drugs steal your appetite. Ben told me that, once. And I sure was on a lot of the things.”

“This is your new body, though? The side effects should be gone now that you don’t use.”

“My consciousness is still fucked, though.” Klaus draws a smiley face on the acrylic in blood using his big toe. Luther winces just as Vanya, Diego, and Ben come in.

“Diego, do you think you can take the glass out? You’re the only one Dad really gave real medical training.”

Diego’s breath stutters. “I’m not stitching him, if that’s what you’re asking.” Flashes of needles flying through the air, string tails whizzing behind them, siblings crying out as he tries to curve under the skin, make the wounds close shut, assault his memory.

Ben shares a look with Vanya before resting a hand on his shoulder. “We would never, Diego. We’re not Dad. I bet you Five knows how to do that part anyway. You just have the steadiest hands.”

At his assurance, Diego agrees shakily and moves to sit next to the tub. Vanya hands him a pair of tweezers she had borrowed from Allison. Klaus languidly rests his calf on the edge of the bath; his bloodied sole exposed to his siblings. It’s mostly clotted by now, but the surface is still slick with a film of deep red. The skin almost shimmers in the light, glass sticking out in every which direction. Diego takes a breath and asks someone to hand him a cup of water from the sink. He doesn’t know who, but someone does, and he washes as much of the blood away as he can. Seeing the gashes in the flesh is almost worse without the liquid coating them. There’s just… rips.

“God, Klaus.” Ben grabs his stomach and turns away.

“Feels better than I assume it looks, really.” Klaus watches as the pink water goes down the drain and snuggles in further to the basin. “Like I stepped on a rose instead of a pile of pain shards.”

“Mom’s good bowl, you mean?” Luther crosses his arm and sits on the lid of the toilet.

Klaus winces. Diego dunks the tweezers in the water. “I’m gonna clean it up, I swear! I’m a good son. The best son, you might say.” He points between his eyes and Luther’s. “I’m coming for your spot, bro.”

“What did you need the bowl for, anyway?” Vanya cocks her head and moves the trashcan next to Diego.

“Why, it’s Wednesday!” Klaus looks at the back of Ben’s head, goading with his eyes. “Waffle Wednesday, you know, Ben! We used to do those all the time when you were dead. I thought that since Pops was gone and Griddy’s won’t delve into the things until we’re seventeen, I might try and make some at home.” He slaps his hands on the floor between his legs. “Forgot that I used to be so damn short.”

Ben makes a face and turns back around. “We don’t have a waffle maker. How were you gonna make the divots?”

Klaus opens his mouth and closes it again. “I totally forgot about that part.”

Vanya’s laugh is cut short as Klaus makes a garish sound. Diego peels his lips back into a pained snarl and stares at the ceiling, trying to keep himself from looking at his brother, hands pinched around the handle of the tweezers which are deep into the meat of Klaus’s foot. The medium quickly cuts himself off and bites into the muscle connecting his thumb and forefinger. They all hear a  _ clink _ before Diego rips the utensil out and drops the shard in the trash. Ben squeezes in and presses a washcloth against the area, stemming the bleeding so it can clot faster and make the rest of the area easier to see.

“Fuck.” Diego puts the tweezers down and runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck, that was the worst. I hated that.”

“Oh, I—,” Klaus gulps in air and coughs the tears out of his throat. “—I bet that was just…  _ awful _ for you, huh.”

“Shut up.” He grips onto the side of the tub. “We just have to do that about twenty more times.”

“He has two feet.”

Klaus wiggles his toes and shoots a dismayed glare into the heavens as Diego goes digging back in.

Vanya clenches her eyes shut and tries to think of anything to distract her brother from the agony of it. “Why…” she starts, not knowing what question she’s going to end up with. “Why won’t you let us tell Mom? She could probably do this painlessly.”

“Yeah, that sounds,  _ hrgh _ , really nice right about now, Van.” Klaus pants and clutches at his uniform sleeves. “But I dropped,  _ fuck! _ , her bowl, and, and she’s going to tell Da- _ ah-ah-ow-ah- _ d. If he finds out, I’m screwed, buddy.” He stares at the corner wall, eyes tracing something none of them can see. “I don’t want to go back to ‘special training’. He can’t— _ I’m going to slaughter you Diego _ —throw me back if he doesn’t know I should be there.”

Ben’s face drops. “He won’t do that.” He takes Klaus’s hands out of their death grip. “We rumored him, he can’t do it even if he wanted to.”

Klaus turns his head, eyes wide and hurt underneath the fevered sweat. His hair slides along the tile behind him. “What if he finds something  _ worse _ ?”

Diego pulls out a particularly big chunk and Klaus lets out a choked scream, teeth bared against the pain. Number Two curses and shoves the washcloth against the area with a whisper to Vanya about grabbing Five. Luther leaves the room, looking happy to not be there.

“C’mon,” Ben hisses, “keep talking. Why’d you put your shoes on, stupid? I know you’re working on half a brain without me, but really, that’s just outrageous.”

“Get extra hours if Mom has to clean up after me.” Klaus watches morbidly as Diego picks up his other leg and starts cleaning the blood from that one, too. “‘N I wanted to see you. You suck, like, all the time in all the ways, but your particular brand of suckage makes me feel less shit.” He presses his chin against his chest. “And I feel like shit! Start doing your job, you slacking loser.”

Ben rolls his eyes, oddly touched. “I’ve been doing my job for thirty years. Gimme a break.”

“No paid leave! This is America! Capitalism, hoo-hah!” Klaus flinches as Diego goes for the tweezers again. “I’m a vet, you know. The government owes me money.”

“You were an illegal vet. They’re not going to give you shit.”

“They should! I’m also a superhero. Been doin’ the greater good my whole life!” Ben moves out of the way as Five comes to sit next to him. Five hisses at the sight. “Five, Five, pal! The government owes me a fuckton of money.” Five pulls a small section of medical string taut. “If I… if I can get it, can we afford to move out? We could buy a nice place, like Vanya’s old apartment, and we can all live there. Luther can strip at a furry bar for money and Ben can do all our taxes.”

“Luther isn’t a furry anymore, Klaus. Also, we’re fifteen.”

“Dammit, you’re right.” Klaus sighs. “He can work on a construction site, then, but that’s stupid boring.” He grips onto the edge of the tub and pulls himself up, yelping as Diego grabs at the skin instead of the glass. “I’ll start my own little shop and sell fortune tellers. Endless fun! Make one control the other and your shitty kids won’t ever get bored. It’s novel. It’s fresh. Hasbro is calling my name.”

“We can’t move, Klaus.” Five eases the needle into Klaus’s heel and the medium bites onto the cuff of his uniform. He pulls the string through and ties a knot. Diego is aggressively not watching. “You need to stop asking.”

Klaus scrubs at his eyes and blinks up at the bathroom’s only light fixture. “Allison could get famous again, but she could get famous as Allison, not Number Three. We could pay for her to go to acting school, a real acting school. Ends might get a little tight but with Vanya being a violin prodigy, we could make it.” His breath gets short as the tweezers slip on the shards. Ben hands Diego another clean washcloth. “And we could find Dolores again, and you can make sure we all don’t die—,”

Five rips the needle through the flesh of Klaus’s foot and pulls the stitch so tight the skin turns white around it. Klaus whimpers. “We  _ can’t  _ do that!” He ties the knot furiously. “No matter what, the Commission comes for us, and we die. I can’t let us move. Stop fucking bringing it up; it isn’t going to happen. I can’t do that for you.”

Ben places a hand on Five’s fist. “Five, it’s okay. He won’t, he just rambles when he’s nervous.”

“Well, he’d better stop.” Five tosses the needle into the bloodied water to wait for Diego to finish. Both boys’ hands are dripping with fresh blood. Not necessarily a dangerous amount, but the substance sure does love to smear. Five scratches it out of his nails.

Diego pours more water over the skin once he’s done, tosses the tweezers into the bath, and jumps to the sink. Five moves into the spot he left vacant. The vigilante grips the edges of the counter and rests his forehead against the mirror. Red stains the acrylic and drips to the floor. Vanya stands up and rubs his back, just like she’s seen Mom do for him. “If we move,” he jams the sink’s knob into the wall and sticks his hands under the scalding hot water, “we’re taking Mom.”

“Diego, I just fucking said—,”

Klaus laughs, high and breezy and sad. “Yeah, yeah we’ll bring Mom. We’ll load up a big ol’ van and we’ll bring Mom and when we move in, she’ll get her own room.”

“She’s always wanted to start a garden,” Vanya adds, “and I want to help. Maybe… maybe we can do that, too?”

“Of cour— _ jesus _ —course! I think that would lighten the lil’ lady’s spirits.”

“I…” Luther scuffs his feet from the doorway. “I don’t really want to move.”

“Luther—,”

“But, but if we do,” he crouches next to the tub, “I think we can buy plastic bowls.”

Klaus stares at the bigger boy for a few moments, utterly shell-shocked. His face cracks and he cackles, pained tears running down his chin as Five finishes off the last of the stitches and throws the needle away. The bath drains and his shorts are soaked and his feet hurt  _ so fucking much _ but it’s downright hysterical. “I knew you had it in ya, big guy!” He leans up and pats Luther on the shoulder.

“Let’s get you out of the tub, Klaus.”

Luther picks the medium out of the basin, still dripping with bloody water and giggling. Vanya smiles softly as the boy’s ramblings are dragged back into his own bedroom, probably to be laid onto a pile of towels on top of the bed.

Five dumps the bucket of water down the drain.

“Ben and I will clean the floor, Five, it’s okay.” Ben wrings out one of the washcloths in the sink and grabs a bottle of soap from the cupboard.

Five blinks and steals the rag from Ben before getting back on his knees to scrub one of the clots out of the tub. “Our new house,” he pauses, “would have to have pretty fucking big rooms.”

“Mammoth.” Vanya can see Ben’s grin in the reflection of the mirror.

“Klaus is severely underestimating the cost of real estate.” The girl pours soap in for him and he nods in thanks. “But we could make it.”

“Of course we could.”


End file.
